A Woodland Park woman, who was a leading member of the effort to recall members of the Woodland Park Park School District Re-2 board, has been acquitted of all charges by a Teller County jury. Samantha Peck, 42, was previously charged with two counts of attempting to influence a public servant and filing a false police report with the Woodland Park Police Department.
— Read on krdo.com/news/2023/07/14/woodland-park-woman-acquitted-of-all-charges-tied-to-calling-police-on-school-board-members-wife/
Author Archives: Matt G
DAVIS: American Birthright: A Woodland Park Investigation
For the past month, I have been investigating a concerted effort by national groups to use the Woodland Park School District as the testing ground for a radical new right-wing approach to public schools, where the goal is no longer to strangle the system and cut taxes, but to seize the system and train up conservative voters. While much has been reported about what is happening in WPSD, little has been documented about why it is happening in Woodland Park specifically, or who is ultimately behind it.
The Woodland Park school board’s first-in-the-nation decision to adopt the American Birthright standards brings us closer to answers for those questions.
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/07/davis-american-birthright-a-woodland-park-investigation/54661/
If you care about public education, go to the polls – The Durango Herald
In the last such elections, in numerous Colorado school districts – e.g., Douglas County, Woodland Park, Colorado Springs, Montezuma-Cortez, Grand Junction and Garfield RE-2 – a group of far-right conservative candidates took over the majorities of those Boards of Education. These individuals sought those positions not because they are committed, genuinely, to improving the quality of public education. Instead, they are part of a political movement, launched in the wake of Glenn Youngkin’s defeat of Terry McAuliffe to become governor of Virginia that demonizes the supposed “indoctrination” of public school students by exposing them to “woke” concepts like equity and inclusion.
— Read on www.durangoherald.com/articles/if-you-care-about-public-education-go-to-the-polls/
Three school board candidates to hold meet and greet | Pikes Peak Courier | gazette.com
Three candidates for the Woodland Park School Board of Directors will be holding a meet and greet on July 22 at Memorial Park.
Candidates Mike Knott, Keegan Barkley, and Seth Bryant will be in attendance, which will be held between 12:30-3:30 p.m. The three will kick off their campaigns for the November election by outlining their stances on the issues facing the district.
Hot dogs will be served.
— Read on gazette.com/content/tncms/live/
‘Refugees’ from Woodland Park heading to Manitou schools –
Woodland Park School District has gone off the rails.
The new superintendent and school board members think that’s a good thing, as they say those rails — mainstream public educational practices — were not properly educating their children. Many students, teachers and parents have protested the new policies and see this as an extremist right-wing takeover.
— Read on pikespeakbulletin.org/featured/refugees-from-woodland-park-heading-to-manitou-schools/
Colorado Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award (Gateway Elementary)
As previously reported here, Gateway Elementary was honored with the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award recently! The thing is though, no one in Woodland Park seemed to know about it until I posted it on Facebook. We found reference to it on the CDE’s website, and a couple weeks after making this info public, the district did finally issue a press release about this.
I learned via CORA that Superintendent Ken Witt received two emails from the CDE about this back on April 27th (email 1, email 2). Here’s what Witt received:
Good morning,
On behalf of Commissioner Anthes, I am pleased to invite you to participate in CDE’s School and District Awards Ceremony on Thursday, May 18 from 2:00-4:30 p.m. to recognize the achievements of your district from 2022!
The award designations for 2022 were noted on School Performance Frameworks, and our Competitive Grants and Awards team will be reaching out to you following this email with a list of your award recipients.
We are hoping that you can attend the awards ceremony and reception and look forward to hearing from you. Knowing that it is a very busy time of year, we will also be delivering award banners and certificates to districts who are unable to attend. Attached you will find an invitation with event details including how to RSVP.source
Kindest regards and congratulations,
Rhonda Haniford
Not only was our district a no-show at the awards ceremony, but I’ve heard nothing about any of the promised award banners and certificates. It’s not clear why the board and superintendent are handling this the way they are.
DAVIS: The Specialists: A Woodland Park Investigation
From the outside, the events unfolding over the past year and a half in Woodland Park – where a far-right school board won control in late 2021, and has since pursued an aggressive agenda of banning certain books, demonizing the local teachers’ union, cutting funding for mental health services, skirting open records and public meetings laws, approving a highly controversial charter school without due process, and firing staff and faculty for speaking out against them – seem like an extension of the right-wing’s long standing animosity to the public school system. On closer inspection, though, what’s happening in Woodland Park looks like something new: an evolution of that old fight, where the goal is no longer to shrink and dissolve the public schooling system, but to seize control of the system and use it to train up a new generation of conservative voters.
— Read on coloradotimesrecorder.com/2023/06/davis-the-specialists-a-woodland-park-investigation/54189/
6/18/2023 Weekly Update
Last Week
- The board held its regular monthly meeting on 6/14/2023. The main focus was approving the budget for school year ’23-24. I’m still pouring through some details so will have more on that later. The board did not move the meeting to a larger space, though everyone who wanted to attend was admitted as there was no organized appearance of Charis students like the 5/10 meeting (which left ~100 people standing out in the rain).
- We noticed an interesting link between board member Kimbrell and a Moms For Liberty leader in Colorado Springs.
- Gateway Elementary won the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award! The district made no announcement of this though…I have CORA requests pending to try to figure out why.
- The WPSD board is no stranger to ‘serial meetings’…meeting one on one in private to skirt open meetings laws. A court case in Douglass County threatens to put an end to that strategy.
- We’re seeing similar turmoil in other school districts…one in Texas being the latest example.
- KOAA reported on the expansion of mental health screenings in Colorado schools (except for a few like WPSD).
Here’s what’s coming up this week:
- The next regular board meeting will be in August. The board met in executive session on 6/14 to discuss security arrangements though, so it wouldn’t be surprising for them to schedule a meeting before the end of the fiscal year to implement a new program, if they reach consensus on one and if it will affect the budget. So we’ll be watching for a last minute meeting scheduled in June.
- School may be out, but this is a time to dig deeper to check into some things the district is doing. So stay tuned for more.
- Three people have announced their intention to run for school board against the three incumbents up for reelection. I haven’t heard much since that original article in the Courier, but expect that as the summer goes by, their campaign efforts will ramp up. I’ve looked into these candidates and think they’ll be great board members!
Gateway Elementary wins Colorado Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award
I stumbled upon a bit of a surprise today…the CDE’s website shows Gateway Elementary received the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award for 2022! Congratulations, Gateway! Great job! The press release from the CDE came out on May 18, 2023, and can be read here. As I understand it, this award is given out in the spring for test scores from the previous year (hence it’s listed as 2022).
What’s puzzling is why I find zero mention of this on the district’s website. Here’s their press release section as of today:
Best guess, is that with the press release in May, the district probably found out much sooner than that…I’ll submit a CORA request to try to learn more and will update this post with what I find. We know they’ve been trying to downplay Gateway and even tried handing it off to be operated by a charter school business earlier in 2023. It’d be hard to convince the community to hand off Gateway like that if it was known to be recognized by the Governor for its accomplishments.
Politics and education clash as Texas district sees teachers leave
As school districts grapple with teacher shortages, NBC News’ Antonia Hylton takes us to a Texas town where frustrations over banned books, restrictions on race and identity lessons have contributed to a 40 percent increase in staff resignations and retirements.
— Read on www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/politics-and-education-clash-as-texas-district-sees-teachers-leave-182508101519
The turmoil in WPSD is happening elsewhere, too. Watch this story about events in a Texas school district.